October 2007

As I mentioned: I have become a full frame convert and believer. I had my problems with the ergonomics of the Canon 5D but it´s getting better. I´m still amazed by the results I get. I even figured out how to work with the flash. It is not as bad as I feared. I can only comment on the 580EXII and this flash seems to work very fine. The only important thing is that you have to switch to Manual Mode. I don´t know why but if you don´t the Canon tries to work with the ambient light and the flash only fills in. This obviously can not work in a dark room. The resulting times are far to low.

I also figured out that it improves the image if you "help" the flash. Here is what I mean. When shooting indoors in poor light I choose a higher ISO usually 400ASA to allow more ambient light. I also try to use a wide aperture like something around f2.0 and a relatively long shutter speed around 1/60s. The advantage of such a setting: The camera gets a lot of ambient light for the exposure because 1/60@f2.0 with 400ASA is only 1 or 2 stops away from a correct available light exposure. The flash kicks in to light the subject but there is enough light in the background to avoid these white faces in front of complete darkness look so common in flash pictures.

The shot above was taken during a dinner with friends. I took my camera because I want to take some images of their new house and some nice portraits of their lovely kids. I managed to get both and a good meal. The images shows Leonie with it´s father and I realised that it is her 4th appearance in my POMs. There is one in 2003, one in 2004 ( one of my favourite kid portraits ) and one in 2005. Well it seems that the camera loves her.

settings for the main shot: M - Mode, 1/50s@f2.2, 250ASA, 580EXII used with "The Shell" attached.